Live Chat Customer Service For Vape Shops: The Best Apps for 2022

Customer service support tools have never been easier to implement than today. With apps that can quickly and easily integrate with your website provider or customer service management software, you can open the lines of communication with your customers more presently and immediately.

One of these tools that is a must-have for vape shops is online chat support. In today’s blog, we talk about everything chat support-related and detail how and why live chat support works, and list the essential pros and cons of live chat customer service apps.

Table of Contents

1. What Is Online Chat Support?
2. How Live Chat Works?
3. Why is Live Chat Support Important?
4. Pros and Cons of Live Chat Support
5. What To Look For in An Live Chat Support App
6. Best Online Chat Apps for 2022
7. Conclusion

What Is Online Chat Support?

Online Chat Support is a customer service system that relies on chat messaging apps to communicate with customers. More immediate than email and less expensive to implement than phone service, online chat support is a real-time tool that could be the answer to your customer department’s internal woes.

How Does a Live Chat Work?

Live chat usually works as a pop-up that would theoretically show up on your homepage and, when clicked on, would turn into a chat window. From here, the customer could be greeted by either a chatbot or an actual customer representative, and the interaction would begin.

Why is Live Chat Support Important?

There are many pros of using live chat support, but we’ll go more into the pros and cons later on in the following section. For now, you should know that live chat support is an essential part of any online vape shop. Not only is it cost-effective when you compare it to a phone customer service system, but it is also effortless to implement to your website if you use an eCommerce platform like Shopify. Those two reasons alone are why live chat support is essential for vape shops.

Pros and Cons of Live Chat Support

There are many pros and cons of live chat support. For example, with live chat support, customers get an instant response from an agent, and while some might prefer speed, others find the chatbox a bit impersonal. Below you can find the top three pros and cons of using live chat support.

Instant Response (Pro)

One of the primary reasons many vape stores opt to use live chat support is that they can serve and respond to their clients faster. With just a few clicks and typed words, the customer can ask for information, and a client or bot can quickly reply. They can also get information about your store hours (if you run a brick-and-mortar shop), ask when a specific vape juice will be back in stock, or address any shipping issues that might present themselves. By using live chat support, customers will always get an instant response.

A Bit Impersonal (Con)

A significant disadvantage of live chat support apps is that they can seem a bit cold and impersonal. Many people always look for a bit of the human touch when it comes to customer service and the ability to talk to a human, which can solve the problem more creatively if they can appeal to their human side. With a chatbox, it is harder to translate tone, and more misunderstandings can occur. However, with practice, these misunderstandings can be ironed out by a seasoned customer representative that learns to communicate effectively with the written word.

Less Cart Abandonment (Pro)

Believe it or not, if customers can reach out at pivotal moments in their purchasing journey, they are more likely to purchase from you. Case in point, if I am a vape customer and want to know the VG/PG ratio of a product that does not have it on the website, a quick question using the live chat box can give me the answer I am looking for at the pivotal time when I have my cart full. Unlike phone customer service systems, making one go through several menus is more effective and leads to less cart abandonment.

Different Time Zones (Con)

If you run an online vape shop in North America, you’ll likely run into the issue of different time zones when setting up your live chat support. Because live chat support requires an actual human that can help you, hiring customers who can work in different time zones can be a hassle, especially if a customer is trying to reach your vape store from another coast. However, with the rise of remote work, one could easily hire customer representatives to work across the country, and if necessary, across the globe.

Even if that’s not a solution for your vape shop, one could always use a chatbot giving clients across the country pre-made answers with basic information. These store conversations, saving them when the following customer service agent begins working again and where matters can be escalated if necessary.

Chatbots (Pro)

Another huge pro of live chat support is chatbots. They can serve as an initial point of contact that can help you allocate your resources more intelligently. For example, let’s say a customer wants to know how to return an item. At the same time, an actual human can undoubtedly answer this question. A chatbot can route the customer to the FAQ area of the website, where the directions can easily be found, and more critical tasks that require a human can be left to the customer service representative.

Does Not Perform Well With Older Demographics (Con)

Another con is that live chat support does not perform well with older customers. This might be because they have been accustomed to using customer service via telephone and find themselves a bit lost when they have to communicate via text. Perhaps they might be a bit skeptical about whether a person is talking to them. To combat this, it’s essential to make it clear in your chat box that a real person is answering and the tone is natural and personal, taking into account the name of the customer and its concern.

What To Look For in An Live Chat Support App

As you can see, even the cons of the live chat support app can be fixed with a bit of effort, making live chat support an excellent tool for online vape shops. If you’re shopping for a live chat support app, then in this section, we walk you through some of the things you should look for when purchasing the live chat app for your vape shop.

Branding

The ability to brand your chat box is essential. The colors, the font, and the images used in the chat box should be customizable and fit the branding of your online vape shop. This will quickly help it better serve your website and not seem out of place when it is finally implemented.

Integration

If you use customer relationship management software, double-check that the live chat support app can be integrated. Alternatively, most CRMs have live chat support apps that can be added to your already existing CRM. If you currently don’t have a CRM make sure that the app is compatible with your eCommerce platform.

Chatbot

Last but not least, making sure that your live chat support app has a chatbot that can perform various functions is extremely important. Tasks like the chatbot being able to weed out customers looking for basic information, saving conversations, and even emails, are pivotal for the success of an excellent live chat support app.

Best Live Chat Support Apps for 2022

Now that you know some of the things to look for in an app, here are, in our opinion, the best live chat support apps you can purchase and add to your vape shop.

LiveChat

Up first is LiveChat, one of the better-known apps also happens to work on most customer relationship management software, websites, and eCommerce platforms. It has several features that set it apart from the herd, like “sneak peek,” which allows the agents to see what the customer is writing before sending it, allowing for a quicker response.

As one of the biggest, they deliver on quality and have excellent customer service if you run into any potential problems. And they even offer a help desk solution for more advanced issues that live chat can not solve.

This app is for vape shops with a sizable clientele and needs live chat support to handle many requests. If your vape shop is pretty big, this is a great live chat to use.

Pricing: $16 per agent

Pure Chat

The great thing about Pure Chat is that it lets you try out the software for 30 days before you decide to purchase it. With the demo, you get to try out all the features of the Pro offering. It also comes with a pretty advanced chatbot that can do several things like accept payments, capture leads, and even make appointments. They also have a pretty robust real-time analytics section and allow for branding of the chatbox.

Pricing: Pure Chat is the most attractive offer if you have a large customer service team. The Pro plan costs $79 for ten customer service agents.

Olark

Founded in 2009, Olark is another excellent live chat app. With almost worldwide customer service, you always have someone ready to help if you run into a problem. And with impressive features like chat automation which allows the app to send specific messages to visitors that visit a particular page, Olark is an excellent live chat service.

Pricing: $19 a month

Chaport

Many features make this app worth considering. For example, it has multichannel capabilities, which means you can set it up, so the live chat works in Viber, Facebook, and Telegram, giving you a way to connect your social media to your live chat app. It also comes with a chatbot that reduces operational costs and can do many things, like combining chatbot messages with live customer service agent chats. They also have a similar feature like Live Chat’s “sneak peek,” The best part is that it has a very robust free plan that includes free unlimited chats.

Pricing: Free plan that includes unlimited chats. With the best plan, the business plan being per agent and per month.

LiveAgent

Finally, last but not least is LiveAgent. At the same time, almost all live chat apps have the same features: chatbots, automated chats, and free demos; LiveAgent offers something unique that is quite appealing and that completely negates one of the cons of live chat support: video chat. With video chat, live chat support is humanized, and suddenly, it doesn’t feel like you are talking to another robot.

Pricing: Multiple Plans, with the more robust plan being $39 per agent

Conclusion

Now that we have reached the end of this blog, we hope that you’ve learned everything there is to know about live chat support apps and that you find the perfect app to install in your online vape shop.